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Resources updated between Monday, January 25, 2016 and Sunday, January 31, 2016

January 31, 2016

After a Russian airstrike (file photo)

SOHR documented the death of 3578 people in Syrian since the 30th of September 2015 which is the date of establishing the Russian airstrikes in Syria, the dead included civilians, rebels, IS, and Jabhat al-Nusra who were killed by thousands of airstrikes targeted Syrian provinces.

The dead are : 1380 civilians ( 332 children, and 195 women ), 853 men and young men, 965 IS, and 1233 rebels and Jabhat al-Nusra including non-Syrian militants.

In one of their most heinous massacres to date, militants from the radical Islamist Boko Haram group slaughtered over a hundred victims in a village in northeast Nigeria Saturday night, including a number of children whom they burned alive.

The latest atrocity from the jihadi group allied to the Islamic State took place in the village of Dalori, some three miles from Maiduguri, Nigeria. Vice Chairman of a civilian joint task force in Dalori, Modu Kaka, said that at least 100 dead bodies were taken away but that hundreds are still missing.

Witnesses spoke of "scores of bodies" burned and riddled with bullets lying in the streets after the attack Saturday night. One man, who managed to escape by hiding in a tree, said that he could hear the wails of children screaming in the flames.

Residents of the community said the militants stormed into town around 6:20 pm and began their killing spree, which lasted for several hours. During the assault, the jihadis demolished houses and burned livestock once they had pillaged and carried away foodstuffs. Several of the villagers were burnt beyond recognition.

Witnesses reported that the fighters ravaged the settlement for four hours, and that three female suicide bombers blew themselves up among people who were fleeing.

Students at nearby University of Maiduguri heard explosions and gunfire, and many fled the area as the conflict raged.

One political science student named Hauwa Ba'na said: "We are crying in our hostel because the explosions are loud and everyone is panicking."

A Dalori resident, Mallam Buka, decried the lack of protection from the Nigerian military. "We were helpless. Could you believe that there was no military presence in Dalori? The government didn't provide security to protect us. I lost 11 people, and 5 of our children are nowhere to be found," she said.

Another resident by the name of Ibrahim Muhammad said that the Boko Haram insurgents had dressed up as military personnel and began opening fire on everybody. "All our wives and children were brutally killed while they looted and destroyed our livestock," he said.

Boko Haram terrorists began their Islamist insurgency in Maiduguri in 2009, and during their 6-year uprising have killed some 20,000 people and driven another 2.5 million from their homes.

At least 10,000 refugee children have vanished after arriving in Europe with many being forced into sex work and slavery, officials believe.

Thousands of young migrants have been targeted by criminals and are now missing, according to the European Union's law enforcement agency Europol.

The news emerged as charity Save the Children estimated that around 26,000 children were forced to travel into Europe alone last year.

Brain Donald, Europol's chief of staff, told Mark Townsend at the Observer: 'It is not unreasonable to say that we are looking at 10,000-plus children.

'We just don't know where they are, what they are doing and whom they are with.'

He said there was evidence some were being sexually exploited by gangs also linked to human trafficking, but stressed not all children would have been linked to criminal activity.

Mr Donald added that the abuse was not happened 'in the middle of forests' but in towns and built-up areas.

He said: 'These kids are in the community, if they're being abused it's in the community.'

The figures emerged after the Home Office announced it would work towards accepting a higher number of 'unaccompanied' migrant children.

The vulnerable children, which will be identified by the Home Office in relation to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, will be in addition to the 20,000 Syrian refugees the Government has already pledged to take in by 2020.

James Brokenshire, immigration minister, said: 'The crisis in Syria and events in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond have separated a large number of refugee children from their families.

'We have asked the UNHCR to identify the exceptional cases where a child's best interests are served by resettlement to the UK and help us to bring them here.'

Aid agencies welcomed the announcement.

A spokesman for Unicef said: 'The UK has a responsibility to protect vulnerable children, it is absolutely right that the government is committed to resettle unaccompanied children from conflict regions.'

Tanya Barron, CEO of children's charity Plan UK, added: 'Any and all help for children who have been separated from their families by the war in Syria should be encouraged.'

"...Also I wanted to come back to yesterday's statement by the Secretary General on the Middle East peace process. I think it has provoked a lot of reaction, some of it negative. Just to underscore that the Secretary General stands by every word that he used in the Security Council...The Secretary General has repeatedly said that nothing, absolutely nothing justifies terrorism....At the same time, if we want to see an end to this violence security measures will not be enough, we must address the root causes, the underlying frustrations...[Y]oung Palestinians are losing hope."

"The UN Secretary General's remarks give a tailwind to terrorism. There is no justification for terrorism. The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state – they want to destroy a state and they say this openly. They want to murder Jews simply because they are Jews and they say this openly. They do not murder for peace and they do not murder for human rights.

The UN lost its neutrality and moral force a long time ago and the Secretary General's remarks do not improve the situation."

Shlomit Krigman, a 23-year old woman from Shadmot Mehola in the West Bank, stabbed in a terror attack in Beit Horon Monday, died of her wounds Tuesday morning and was laid to rest in Har Hamenuchot in Jerusalem.

Hadassa Medical Center said that "despite the efforts of medical staff and efforts to stabilize her condition, we were forced announce her death this morning." There has been considerable improvement in the condition of the other woman wounded in the attack. She is 58 and is hospitalized in Shaare Tzedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Shlomit is survived by her parents, Naama and Yitzhak, and six siblings. Recently she completed a bachelor's degree in industrial design at the University of Ariel.

The settlement of Beit Horon issued a statement on "the death of Shlomit Krigman, murdered by vile terrorists. Shlomit was loved and known to all; she served as a Bnei Akivah youth group coordinator during her national service. During the past year she lived with her grandparents in the settlement of Beit Horon".

Hundreds attended her funeral at Har Hamenuchot in Jerusalem. Her teacher at Ariel University eulogized her and said that "she was open to the world and she was full of curiosity. She was interested in many fields. It all came to an end in an instant. A young woman whose life was cut short."

The attack happened on Monday afternoon, when two terrorists stabbed two women and planted home-made bombs outside a grocery store at the settlement of Beit Horon. A security guard shot and killed both of the attackers.

Security forces found three home-made bombs in the vicinity of the store, apparently planted there by the terrorists, and a bomb squad was called to the scene to neutralize them.

The terrorists - Ibrahim Alan, 22, from Beit Ur al-Tahta near Highway 443, and Hussein Abu Ghosh, 17, from the Qalandiya refugee camp, who is affiliated with Hamas - came into the settlement from the nearby wadi, jumping over the settlement's fence.

According to Motti Shalem, who worked at the grocery store at the time of the attack, "the two terrorists came from the direction of the fence, and must've breached it and got in. Then they stabbed a woman on the sidewalk, and another at the parking lot, and then tried to enter the store. Me and another guy pushed them back with a supermarket cart, and then they ran, and were shot by the security guard."

Kriegsman was critically wounded, and taken to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem's Mount Scopus, while the other, 58 years old, was moderately wounded and taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital.

Following the attack, Beit Horon's residents were ordered to stay inside their homes and close their doors and windows. The IDF has set up roadblocks in all access ways to Beit Ur al-Tahta, the home of one of the terrorists, only allowing people in and out after a security check.

President Reuven Rivlin issued a statement following the attack, saying: "My thoughts and prayers are with those wounded and fighting for their lives after the severe terror attack at Beit Horon. These difficult times are fraught with confrontation and we will overcome. We will continue to fight against terrorism and the incitement which drives it. In the face of terror, we choose life."

An Israeli man came under fire Sunday night while driving near the West Bank Settlement of Dolev, north of Jerusalem, but escaped uninjured.

His car was struck by at least one bullet, and he was treated for shock after the attack.

The victim, described by the Magen David Adom emergency service as an Israeli man in his 50s, managed to escape and continued driving to the settlement of Dolev, where he was treated for shock by paramedics.

Israel Defense Forces said security forces had launched a manhunt for the perpetrator.

The attack comes amid an upsurge of violent attacks on Israelis by Palestinians in the West Bank over the last several months.

Last week, a Palestinian teenager stabbed to death Dafna Meir outside her home in the Hebron-area settlement of Otniel. The attacker was named as 16-year-old Morad Bader Abdullah Adais, and was apprehended by security forces the following day in a nearby Palestinian village.

A day later, an Israeli woman was stabbed by a Palestinian man in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, just south of Jerusalem. The woman, 30-year-old, Michal Froman was moderately wounded. Her attacker was shot and apprehended.

The Dolev area, which is near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, has been the scene of attacks in the past.

In July 2015, a 25-year-old Israeli man, Danny Gonen, was shot dead by Palestinian terrorists at a natural spring just outside the settlement.